100 Days of Healing – Day 37

I’m in the process of separating from my business partner. It’s a process that he isn’t really participating in, which is no real surprise sine he quit participating in work three months ago. It’s been hanging over my head, and while he’s been absent for personal reasons, it’s an absence that neither I nor the business can tolerate.

He had initially agreed to sign things over to me in exchange for his half of the assets, but he has since changed his stance, although he cannot give a time that he will be back to work. After a few unproductive phone conversations I decided to send a letter giving him the option to keep the company or sign it over to me, but either way I cannot continue to be his business partner for a number of reasons that stem from issues that existed prior to his absence, but which have certainly been exacerbated by it.

I have yet to receive a response from him, and I am in the middle of projects that are about to require a great deal of involvement and some travel. There are conference registrations coming up. There is new work that needs to be gotten. And I have no idea how our business divorce is going to go. I am the face of the company and can independently perform our work, so it makes sense (and people close to me argue it’s the “right thing”) for him to take his part and let me continue building the company that arguably would not exist without me. But people don’t always do the right thing, and since he has changed his statements on this, I don’t have a lot of confidence that this is going to be a smooth or quick transition. It could be if I just walked out, but walking out has its own consequences and challenges.

This is a lot of uncertainty, and uncertainty about my livelihood. And I am having to sit with it, because half of it I cannot control, and the half that I can I have done what I can do for now.

I hate uncertainty. Take the normal human response and add PTSD to it and I can experience so many negative effects, because my experience with the negative tends to be magnified. I was at a rodeo last night, and was crying as the women rode in with the rodeo flags. That’s not my normal response, it was a magnified emotional response, but it took me until today to realize that the uncertainty with the future of my company and my work is weighing on me that heavily, and that I am that emotionally disregulated.

But how grateful I am that I can now recognize it for what it is and continue to sit with the uncertainty.